The Wunderkammer of the Mild Colonial Boy, Esq., a Reactionary Tory Gentleman, who armed only with a Steampowered Babbage Engine and Pure Intentions, wanders the Time Streams and Aetheric Plane gathering an Eccentric Hodgepodge of Curiousities, Frivolities, Whimsicalities and Nonsense.
Q. Why is your Tumblelog called "My Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck by Lightning"?
A. Because "My Grandmother's Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck by Lightning" wouldn't fit in the available space.
This missal (the most important liturgical book, containing constant and inconstant parts of the mass) has been created circa 1470 for St. Mary Magdalene Church in Wroclaw.
It had been lost for centuries, but has been returned to Poland in 2009. It is very well preserved and still in original binding.
Pretty medieval manuscript of the day shows St Michael fighting the devil for the souls of two corpses.
According to the library:
“This Book of Hours was copied in Eastern France between 1425 and 1475. The miniature featured here is one of twelve large miniatures in gold frames, arched at the top and with three or four lines of text underneath. This leaf shows the beginning of the psalm for first vespers in the Office of the Dead. The miniature shows St Michael fighting a devil over two corpses; a third ‘corpse’ is ascending into heaven. The full border is a floral-acanthus design with twining ivy leaves. Immediately below the miniature is a 3-line initial in red, blue and orange with white tracery on a gold ground. The last line of text is completed with a line filler”
There is plenty here for the modern viewer to find peculiar, but the thing that strikes me as the oddest thing is the sight of a body ascending (or descending?) from heaven. The site of a torso and legs hanging from the celestial heavens, whilst St Michael and the devil fight like cat and dog is downright bizarre! These artists certainly had a tricky time, trying to find new ways to depict extraordinary stories!
Image source: Alexander Turnbull Library MSR-02, National Library of New Zealand. Image released into the public domain via the Flickr Commons.
![proustianrecall:
dr-wtfox:
proustianrecall:
samuelfink:
600 year old italian manuscript
“In apparitione sancti michaelus archangeli. Ad tertiam. (I think the rest is “Bem. brcuc?”)”
It looks like “responsum [I think] breue.” It’s a liturgical manuscript; the text that follows the rubric and the decorated initial, “Stetit angelus,” is the choral response to the preceding versicle, or passage from a psalm, which concludes “psalmum [I think] dicat nomini tuo.” I can’t make out all of the text up in the corner, but Google says it’s “hoc signum crucis erit in coelo, alleluia,” and there’s something to do with the day of judgment, “cum dominus ad iudiciandum uenerit, alleluia.” It looks like the entire text is meant to be sung during services for the Feast of St. Michael.
[Italics in a word indicates that the word is abbreviated, or letters are left out (suspended), in the manuscript.]
Ah, that would make sense. I thought it was bout Saint Michael, but for some reason I kept thinking “Angelus.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lslqraLhQJ1r2sjyto1_500.jpg)
600 year old italian manuscript
“In apparitione sancti michaelus archangeli. Ad tertiam. (I think the rest is “Bem. brcuc?”)”
It looks like “responsum [I think] breue.” It’s a liturgical manuscript; the text that follows the rubric and the decorated initial, “Stetit angelus,” is the choral response to the preceding versicle, or passage from a psalm, which concludes “psalmum [I think] dicat nomini tuo.” I can’t make out all of the text up in the corner, but Google says it’s “hoc signum crucis erit in coelo, alleluia,” and there’s something to do with the day of judgment, “cum dominus ad iudiciandum uenerit, alleluia.” It looks like the entire text is meant to be sung during services for the Feast of St. Michael.
[Italics in a word indicates that the word is abbreviated, or letters are left out (suspended), in the manuscript.]
Ah, that would make sense. I thought it was bout Saint Michael, but for some reason I kept thinking “Angelus.”
Great example of banderoles, the dialogue-covered scrolls that I consider the antecedent of speech balloons in comics. Well, if not antecedent, at least a distant relative.
Annunciation to Mary, The
This scene of the Annunciation from the Beaufort Hours (probably belonging to Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII) is a revealing example of the crisp, flat and colourful style that was standard in commercial workshops in London in the mid 15th century. The figure drawing is competent and the colouring bright, but note how the Virgin gazes down to meet the upward look of the patroness of the book, depicted in the initial below, rather than at the angel of the Annunciation. The patroness is probably Margaret Beauchamp, Duchess of Somerset, mother of Margaret Beaufort.
